[Web4lib] Wikimania 2007: Call for Participation

[Jakob Voss]

Please circulate this call among Wikimedia communities, researchers and
other people that may be interested! This call is also online at
http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Call_for_Participation


== Wikimania 2007: Call for Participation ==

=== About Wikimania ===

Wikimania is an annual global event devoted to Wikipedia and the other
Wikimedia Foundation projects. It is a community event, which is also
open to the public and to scientists. Wikimania is a place for editors
and users of the Wikimedia projects around the globe (Wikipedia,
Wikibooks, Wikisource, Wikinews, Wiktionary, and Wikiversity) to gather,
to meet each other, to exchange ideas, and to report on research and
projects. This year's conference will be held from August 3-5, 2007 in
Taipei, Taiwan at Chien Tan Overseas Youth Activity Center
<http://www.cyh.org.tw/center/center_bu.php?loginno=&buid=B>.

We are accepting submissions for posters, presentations, workshops, and
discussion groups. We are also accepting nominations for speakers and
speaker panels, and suggestions for other activities. Please note the
details below and be bold in your submissions!

=== Important dates ===

 * 1 March – 30 April: Submission
 * 1 May – 31 May: Feedback and notification of acceptance
 * 3 – 5 Aug 2007 : Wikimania

=== Conference Themes ===

Submissions should address one or more of the following themes:

 * Wikimedia Communities – Interesting projects and particularities
within the communities (we explicitly invite you to present your local
Wikimedia project's community!); policy creation within individual
projects; conflict resolution and community dynamics; reputation and
identity; multilingualism, languages and cultures; social studies.

 * Free Content – Open access to information; ways to gather and
distribute free knowledge, usage of the Wikimedia projects in education,
journalism, research; ways to improve content quality and usability;
copyright laws and other legal areas that interfere with Wikimedia projects.

 * Technical infrastructure – Issues related to Mediawiki development
and extensions; Wikimedia hardware layout; new ideas for development
(including usable case studies from other wikis or similar projects).

Your topic must be related to Wikimedia projects and its communities or
to the creation of free content in general. If your topic does not cover
free content creation and communities but wikis or communities in other
applications then the WikiSym 2007 conference
<http://www.wikisym.org/ws2007/> (October 21-23, 2007, Montreal) or a
Recent Changes camp might better suit.

=== Types of Submissions ===

We are seeking submissions for

 * presentations (10–30 minute talks with optional short or full papers)
 * posters (printed presentations or visual displays that can stand on
their own)
 * workshops (30–120 minute session with more involvement of the audience)
 * panels (group of 2-5 speakers to discuss on a specific subject)
 * Birds-of-a-Feather (BoF) (45-60 minutes informal meetup of group
discussion on a particular topic)
 * artistic artifacts (plays, competitions, comedy, visualizations, or
other representations of some aspect of the projects)

Furthermore you may leave ideas, comment, and suggestions at the public
wiki page <http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Program_Ideas>.

=== Guidelines ===

Wikimania is organized by volunteers, so please help us to minimize
wasted effort by following these guidelines carefully before submitting
and be sure not to forget anything that is mentioned here. All
submissions must explicitly include the following:

 * an English title
 * a short English abstract of 50 to 100 words. The abstracts should be
provided as plain text, and not as file attachments. This abstract will
be used as public description of your submission in the conference program
 * a detailed description (or full paper) of at least one page (300
words or more). This description will not be published unless you want
it, but used for reviewing your submission. Give an overview of the
areas to be covered or taught. State clearly the relevance to the
Wikimedia projects and whether submission concerns a specific wiki
project. You may use any language, but we strongly suggest English or
Chinese. Full descriptions may include a link to a full paper or slides
in HTML or PDF, if available.
 * full name, email address, and a short bio of 1–3 sentences for each
author. You may also add wiki usernames and nicknames.
 * the type of submission (presentation, poster, workshop, panel, BoF,
artistic)
 * the language(s) you are going to talk in (or the language of your
poster)

Please tell us with your submission whether you will attend to Wikimania
(a) surely, (b) probably, (c) only if your submission is accepted, or
(d) only if you manage to get further funding. It may also help to add
yourself to the public list of attendees at
<http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Attendees>.

Additionally you must specify:

 * the target audience you are going to reach and what previous
knowledge is needed
 * special requirements (such as equipment for a workshop or panel) if
needed
 * images or sketches of the poster or artistic artifact if available
 * for panel submissions short biographies of each suggested panelist
 * whether the presentation is intended to be a specific length.
 * BoF proposals should describe the significance of and community
interest in the topic, and name the proposed discussion leader(s).

Please note that all submissions must be dual licensed under the GNU
Free Documentation License version 1.2 or later and the Creative Commons
Attribution License.

Once you are sure you have included all of the required information,
please send your submission by the respective deadline through our
submission system <http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Submission>,
which will be available at the Wikimania 2007 website. Please do not
send submissions by email. For poster sessions
<http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Poster_session> there are
additional guidelines. Before the main conference there will also be
informal Hacking days
<http://wikimania2007.wikimedia.org/wiki/Hacking_days> for MediaWiki
developers who are familiar with the software. If you need help for
translating your work please visit our translation help page. Questions,
but not submissions, may be directed to cfp at wikimedia.org.